Good morning everyone. I hope you are waking up to a beautiful Memorial Day morning (or just a beautiful Monday morning if you’re outside of the United States). I figured for the Morning Commute on Memorial Day, we would talk a little bit about a band called Freedom Baby, and their song “I Want To Give.”
The fact that the word freedom is in the band name was completely planned, and definitely not total luck.*
This is just a normal Monday morning for the 8 piece Toronto indie rock group, but this is not a normal band. These guys have made something truly unique and special with this one.
First off, let’s get one thing out of the way. Yes, the song is almost 15 minutes long. I promise it won’t feel like that. I have listened to this song for over an hour in the past couple of days, and I love it every single time. If you aren’t sold from the very beginning with the vulnerable voice of Brianna Bordihn guiding you into your chair, holding you captive for the next 15 minutes, stick around until the 1:02 mark. If you don’t feel something at that point, you are a robot.
In what I would say are 4-5 separate acts throughout the song, a story unfolds of love, struggle, war, and heartache. The band uses their time wisely, crescendoing into cacophonous roars at times, and then brings you all the way back down to barely a whisper, creating dividers between acts but still maintaining a cohesive project better than most artists can do with a hard stop between tracks.
“And I’ll do just what I want
Try not to fear consequence
And try to live
And I’ll contemplate my death
While drawing in my final breath
But not til then”
Existentialism is weighed in on, valuing being authentic over all else. Exploring the fact that death comes to us all, they plant seeds of self-examination in the head of the listeners. Whoever you are, be that person to the best of your ability, and try to live.
As a married man with one child and another on the way, there is also one of the most poetic lines I’ve heard in a long time in this song:
“Let our daughters look like you
Let our sons be brave like you”
A seemingly simple message, it takes on a whole new life when you’re hoping for those same traits that you love so much about your spouse are passed down to your children.
I could go on about this song for a while, but it’s currently 3:08 am. I do want to continue this conversation though, and I’d love to do it with Freedom Baby on the podcast. Caleb has no idea I’m doing this, but I know he will be on board with this idea 100%. Our next podcast is on the theme of Creativity. I’m going to do everything I can to get Freedom Baby to do an interview with us that will go on that episode so we can talk about their creative process, the idea behind the song, and just about who they are in general.
These guys have officially joined my list of criminally underrated bands along with Ezra Bell, Tim de Vil, and Fire Chief Charlie. Enjoy your commute this morning. These guys are going to take you all the way to work (or at least 15 minutes into your commute).
*Freedom in the name of the band was definitely total luck. A Bob Ross happy accident.
-Seth
B-Side Guys 
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